The TV media may today be organized in a two-way interactive communication network, and it is not limited to the conventional one-way distribution to the viewers. Further, TV may be watched anywhere, on different types of screens, such as e.g. on a PC, and not only on a conventional TV-screen. This development of the TV media enables new services, e.g. involving interactivity by the viewer. Interactivity through wireline and wireless two-way networks enables a viewer to participate, e.g. to vote in a TV show, to buy products by interacting with advertisements, and to send personal messages, e.g. to a TV show. A viewer could also receive personalized ads by targeted advertising, receive a personalized listing of TV programs in an electronic program guide (EPG), and personalized program content information adapted to the profile of the viewer.
The IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) offers new opportunities for telecommunication service providers to compete with cable television operators, satellite-TV operators, and other terrestrial television service providers in order to attract customers. The so-called “triple play” is a bundled offering of
Internet, telephone and IPTV-services, which is designed to attract new customers, and to retain existing customers.
In IPTV, media services may be provided through wireline and wireless telephone networks using web browser technology, such that a viewer is able to watch specific Internet pages accessible by a web browser. Conventionally, each Internet page is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) or a similar page address.
In general, IPTV is a system for receiving and displaying multimedia streams encoded as a series of IP data packets. The Open IPTV Forum is currently specifying an end-to-end platform for supplying multimedia and IPTV services to UEs over the Internet and managed networks having controlled quality-of-service (QoS) performance, using the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture specified by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). A UE could access services both by a wireline-connection, e.g. by the Ethernet, a cable modem, or a digital subscriber line, and wirelessly, e.g. by a 3GPP-specified cellular user device.
Thus, a viewer may access IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Sub-system)-based IPTV (Internet Protocol Television)-services, on different types of UEs (User Equipments), such as e.g. a TV, an STB (Set-Top Box), a PC (Personal Computer) or a mobile phone, provided that the UE has suitable functionality, e.g. is OITF (Open IPTV-Forum)-enabled.
The IMS uses the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the Session Description Protocol (SDP) as its basic signalling mechanisms. The SIP is a mechanism defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for finding endpoints and routing control signals between them and is a set of simple operations, including REGISTER, INVITE, ACK, and BYE, and the SDP is a protocol for declaring media. In IMS networks, the media transport is based e.g. on the real-time transport protocol (RTP).
In order to access an IMS-based IPTV service through a conventional IMS-architecture, a UE registers in a serving call session control function (S-CSCF), which is an IMS core node and basically corresponds to a SIP server. The IMS-architecture may also comprise a number of access nodes, including a proxy CSCF (P-CSCF), a media gateway control function (MGCF), and one or more border gateways (BGs), that mediate UE-access to the core nodes, and through them to media content residing on media servers. The UE may include an IP multimedia subscriber identity module (ISIM), which is an application, or a computer program, residing on a universal integrated circuit card (UICC) that enables the UE to register and access the IMS. The ISIM is typically pre-configured with parameters necessary to initiate the UE's registration to the IMS, including a private user identity, one or more public user identities, and a home network domain name.
There are a number of IMS services defined for the IMS, e.g. the above described IPTV-service, as well as a Messaging-service. The IMS IPTV service enables set-up of a Video-on-Demand session or a broadcast session, reserving network resources, e.g. bandwidth, and ensuring that the source of the media stream is set-up correctly.
The IMS Messaging-service, denoted Instant Messaging (IM) according to the OMA (Open Mobile Alliance), enables an end-user to receive an instant message on any IMS-connected terminal, e.g. a mobile, PC or Set Top Box (STB). Thus, if an instant message (IM) is sent to an end-user, the message will be received on all IMS-connected devices belonging to the end-user. Instant messaging could be described as real-time communication between two or more users, based on typed text, e.g. over the Internet.
For IPTV services, it would be an advantage to be able to combine Instant Messages with the IPTV, e.g. for sending program reminders (i.e. IPTV notifications) to an end-user.
However, a drawback with using instant messaging for IPTV notifications is that it is not possible for the end-user to differentiate those notifications from instant messages received from other devices and end-users, without adding complexity to the server that is sending the program reminder. The program reminder, i.e. an IPTV Notification, is typically sent from an IAP (an IPTV application Platform), hereinafter denoted an SCF-node (Service Control Function).
Thus, it still presents a problem to use instant messages for sending IPTV notifications to an end-user, and to differentiate instant messages comprising IPTV notifications from other instant messages at the receiving device.